butlers.
KU F’ENG
Xian, 234 B.C. 800 to 900,000 bu. Pottery. Marital status: unknown but thought to have left several thousand direct descendants.
Name translates roughly as “Maker of money from dirt.” A modest potter in Xian province, F’eng convinced the thirteen-year-old emperor Qin Shi Huang—later known as “The First Emperor” after he united China—that his mausoleum should contain, among other creature comforts, eight thousand life-size terra-cotta warriors to guard him in the afterlife. Created the world’s first life-size terra-cotta warrior mass-production facility (an engineering feat not much imitated since). Eleven years and 8,099 warriors later, the now twenty-four-year-old emperor had bored of the project and, on the pretext that Ku F’eng was a secret adherent of Confucianism, had him buried alive along with the vast clay army. Sometimes called “The Last Warrior.”
MARCANTONIO FANTUCCI
Venice, AD 1634. 5 million to 7 million ducats. Glassblowing, tele-scopes.
Apprenticed under the great Venetian glassblower Finoccio Babbalucanelli, supplier of chandeliers to the Medici. Fascinated early on by Galileo’s astronomical telescopic explorations. When Galileo was forced to recant his theory of heliocentrism before the Inquisition in 1633, Fantucci correctly bet the event would create a vast demand for telescopes so that, as he put it craftily, “Everyone may watch the Sun orbit around the Earth.” Borrowed 1,500 florins from Vigorino (The Shrewd) di Medici; constructed a telescope factory across the border in Switzerland (just to be safe). Most of his customers being Italian, he strove to remain in the favor of Pope Urban VIII and the Inquisition by naming his telescope the “Urban 8X.” The instruction manual stated the telescope was “so marvelously powerful that you can actually see God. He is the very handsome one (does he not resemble our own beloved Pope Urban?) sitting on the third ring of Saturn next to John the Baptist.” The telescopes sold briskly.
ANTOINE CHARLES EDUARD MARIE-BAPTISTE HONORÉ DE SAINT-HELOΪSE MERDE-ALORS, DUC DE VAUCOMPTE-LE-GROS
Versailles, 1704. 300,000 gold écus. Versailles. Fashion design.
Trained at the Atelier of Yves Le Chat-Blanc, supplier of hosiery and undergarments to the court of Louis XIV. When Le Chat-Blanc was felled by the plague on the eve of presenting the fall line of 1694, Antoine took over, impressing le Roi Soleil and his mistress Louise de la Vallière with his daring presentation of intimate apparel. Louis appointed him Pourvoyeur Exclusif des Sous-Pantalons Royales, making him the overnight toast of the Continent. Immediately feuded with Colbert, the finance minister, over astronomical bills for lingerie and jocques-strapes dorées ; quarrel eventually led to the resumption of fierce religious war, for reasons that to this day continue to elude scholars. Following Louis’s death in 1715—attributed to an ill-fittingculotte—Antoine left France under a cloud, never to return. Thereafter he designed undergarments for many of the royal houses of Europe, as well as for Peter the Great of Russia, who up to then had worn only crude drawers made from monks’ beards and jute. Attempts to mass-produce an early version of le pantyhose using silk and spiderweb failed, bankrupting him.
GILEAD (SAM) STARBUCK
Boston, 1775. 140,000 dollars to 160,000 dollars (silver). Tea.
In December 1773, Starbuck was purser on the New Bedford whaleship Incontinent when it put into Boston Harbor to offload. Observing a crowd of Bostonians oddly dressed as Native Americans and hurling bricks of valuable English tea into the harbor, he lowered one of Incontinent ’s whaleboats and rescued some of the 45 tons of jettisoned tea. Opened his first tea shop in Braintree several days later, serving a beverage called “Sal-Tea.” When Sal-Tea failed to catch on, he rebranded it “Patrio-Tea,” which did eventually find acceptance with Boston’s
KU F’ENG
Xian, 234 B.C. 800 to 900,000 bu. Pottery. Marital status: unknown but thought to have left several thousand direct descendants.
Name translates roughly as “Maker of money from dirt.” A modest potter in Xian province, F’eng convinced the thirteen-year-old emperor Qin Shi Huang—later known as “The First Emperor” after he united China—that his mausoleum should contain, among other creature comforts, eight thousand life-size terra-cotta warriors to guard him in the afterlife. Created the world’s first life-size terra-cotta warrior mass-production facility (an engineering feat not much imitated since). Eleven years and 8,099 warriors later, the now twenty-four-year-old emperor had bored of the project and, on the pretext that Ku F’eng was a secret adherent of Confucianism, had him buried alive along with the vast clay army. Sometimes called “The Last Warrior.”
MARCANTONIO FANTUCCI
Venice, AD 1634. 5 million to 7 million ducats. Glassblowing, tele-scopes.
Apprenticed under the great Venetian glassblower Finoccio Babbalucanelli, supplier of chandeliers to the Medici. Fascinated early on by Galileo’s astronomical telescopic explorations. When Galileo was forced to recant his theory of heliocentrism before the Inquisition in 1633, Fantucci correctly bet the event would create a vast demand for telescopes so that, as he put it craftily, “Everyone may watch the Sun orbit around the Earth.” Borrowed 1,500 florins from Vigorino (The Shrewd) di Medici; constructed a telescope factory across the border in Switzerland (just to be safe). Most of his customers being Italian, he strove to remain in the favor of Pope Urban VIII and the Inquisition by naming his telescope the “Urban 8X.” The instruction manual stated the telescope was “so marvelously powerful that you can actually see God. He is the very handsome one (does he not resemble our own beloved Pope Urban?) sitting on the third ring of Saturn next to John the Baptist.” The telescopes sold briskly.
ANTOINE CHARLES EDUARD MARIE-BAPTISTE HONORÉ DE SAINT-HELOΪSE MERDE-ALORS, DUC DE VAUCOMPTE-LE-GROS
Versailles, 1704. 300,000 gold écus. Versailles. Fashion design.
Trained at the Atelier of Yves Le Chat-Blanc, supplier of hosiery and undergarments to the court of Louis XIV. When Le Chat-Blanc was felled by the plague on the eve of presenting the fall line of 1694, Antoine took over, impressing le Roi Soleil and his mistress Louise de la Vallière with his daring presentation of intimate apparel. Louis appointed him Pourvoyeur Exclusif des Sous-Pantalons Royales, making him the overnight toast of the Continent. Immediately feuded with Colbert, the finance minister, over astronomical bills for lingerie and jocques-strapes dorées ; quarrel eventually led to the resumption of fierce religious war, for reasons that to this day continue to elude scholars. Following Louis’s death in 1715—attributed to an ill-fittingculotte—Antoine left France under a cloud, never to return. Thereafter he designed undergarments for many of the royal houses of Europe, as well as for Peter the Great of Russia, who up to then had worn only crude drawers made from monks’ beards and jute. Attempts to mass-produce an early version of le pantyhose using silk and spiderweb failed, bankrupting him.
GILEAD (SAM) STARBUCK
Boston, 1775. 140,000 dollars to 160,000 dollars (silver). Tea.
In December 1773, Starbuck was purser on the New Bedford whaleship Incontinent when it put into Boston Harbor to offload. Observing a crowd of Bostonians oddly dressed as Native Americans and hurling bricks of valuable English tea into the harbor, he lowered one of Incontinent ’s whaleboats and rescued some of the 45 tons of jettisoned tea. Opened his first tea shop in Braintree several days later, serving a beverage called “Sal-Tea.” When Sal-Tea failed to catch on, he rebranded it “Patrio-Tea,” which did eventually find acceptance with Boston’s
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